Hillary 2016?

If voters start transforming into a bimodal distribution, which I think is in the very early stages of happening, then the electable candidate moves from the absolute center to the peak of the larger of the two distributions.

While I think Hillary would be swell....I have doubts she will run, due to age, and perhaps her desire to devote more time to other challenges.

However, the prospect of the US electing the spouse of a former President leaves a bad tastes in my mouth. Is that the best the greatest democracy on earth can produce? A country of 400 million...elects the spouse of a former president? Isn't that bordering on cult of personality, nepotism, or pseudo-monarchy? Not only would they end up with Hillary, they would end up with her troupe, hanger-ons from Clinton and Obama. A similar result on the other side if Jeb Bush were to run.

I liked Merkley when I lived in Oregon. It was great to see him unseat Gordon Smith.

But Oregon's a relative national backwater, and he's pretty liberal. Given how the country has shifted, he's probably too socialist to be elected. That's how he'd get portrayed, I bet. He's even more of what people thought Obama would be, before the latter's true colors showed (npi).

The funny thing is that the populous of the USA consistently polls far more liberal than our elected representatives think it to be. This is true of both Republicans and Democrats.

The populous doesn't all vote. Our elected representatives are elected by the subset of the populous that bothers to vote, which is far more conservative.

As we saw in the last election, a demographic shift has structurally strengthened the Democrats. The Republicans need nothing short of an image makeover if they have a prayer of winning next time around.

Image makeover? Lipstick on the pig? I think they're trying that now and it's flying like a lead balloon. No, they need a lot of their base to just flat out croak off.

As to Hillary, yeah, must confess to some ageism here when it comes to that office. Generally a younger dynamic individual is better, although Obama was that and he's been quite the disappointment. If he had any manly political sack whatsoever, he would have let the Bush tax cuts expire and told Grover Norquist, "So there. Impeach me, you unelected twit. Hope you have better luck with President Biden."

But, about Ms. Clinton, there would be tremendous entertainment value in watching the idiot right get worked up into a frothing, hissing paroxysm of hate and rage, along with the attendant conspiracy theories, which would just be the same old, same old, only re-tooled for Clinton. UN One World Government, taking your guns away, yadda yadda. Maybe something, something lesbians.

I think Hillary has the nomination if she wants it (although, hey, didn't everyone say that in 2007?) and she'd probably win. Can't get terribly excited about her administration though.

I do think the biggest concern is her age--70 is pretty old to be starting a term in the White House. The job takes a lot out of you. For that reason, I don't know if she'll even run, and I don't think she'll decide for a couple years.

I have no idea who I'd like to see run. I'm hoping that some bright young progressive politician will somehow run a socially-financed campaign and can thus ignore a lot of establishment. Maybe someone like Chris Travers. But obviously that's something of a fantasy.

If voters start transforming into a bimodal distribution, which I think is in the very early stages of happening, then the electable candidate moves from the absolute center to the peak of the larger of the two distributions.

I'm not even sure it's in the early stages of happening. We're already pretty bimodal. The right already thinks all of the worst possible things about Obama, what worse things are they somehow going to throw out against a more liberal candidate? This one is really a socialist this time guys, we mean it! He/she is actually a Muslim now! We were wrong about that last President, but listen to us because this is the most important election ever!

At the moment, voting distribution seems to be confined to the SRB and everyone else, and the everyone distribution is larger. I'm honestly not sure that any attempt at a nationally relevant party is going to have a shot at existing in a world with a bimodal distribution, and Republicans just haven't figured out that they are and that they're losing yet.

Biden? Really? The only guy in the room that doesn't have to work to be dumber than Bush II? Well, I guess I *would* prefer him over Hillary. In the same way I'd prefer my own death via the guillotine to that from gas gangrene.

EDIT: Who would I vote for? A person who:

* Successfully helps to promote and implement a 2-term limit for all members of Congress. * Successfully helps to promote and implement the disbanding the TSA and Homeland Security.* Successfully helps to repeal the Sonny Bono Act.

OK, here's a curveball: What if Christie takes a hard, logical look at things and switches party affiliation?

I doubt he'd be able to go anywhere as a D. I certainly have no interest in voting for him. I want the Ds to move to the ideological left, not the right. There isn't enough room on the right for a sane Republican party right now and the ideological left has no representation/

OK, here's a curveball: What if Christie takes a hard, logical look at things and switches party affiliation?

I doubt he'd be able to go anywhere as a D. I certainly have no interest in voting for him. I want the Ds to move to the ideological left, not the right. There isn't enough room on the right for a sane Republican party right now and the ideological left has no representation/

I quite agree with what the D's should do, but you and I both know there's no demographic need for them to while the R's have abandoned the center. In the meantime, Christie has reasonable arguments for going either direction (he *did* make the first-ever nomination of a gay man to the state's Supreme Court, for instance). And he's hardly standoffish with Cory Booker. I made the proposal with tongue in cheek, but I truly don't see it as implausible.

Agreed. She's Obama with breasts. We need a break from DLC authoritarian banker lovers. Even Biden is damaged goods to me now.

Back in the 2008, before the first primaries, she was seen as bought and paid for, with Obama the hopeful choice of the grass roots -- all those individual donations.

But policy-wise, he has been about center-right as she would have been. Even the ACA may in the end alienating a lot of the 18-29 voting block if they resent having to buy insurance when they're not earning particularly a lot of money.

If the 2016 candidates have to raise a billion dollars -- the bar set in 2012 -- she's going to win the nomination unless some unexpected figure upsets her in the first primaries again, like 2008. Not sure who that would be. O'Malley and Booker both have less name recognition than Obama had at a similar point. When Obama officially announced he was running, he got the kind of coverage that O'Malley, Booker and just about any other Democratic candidate couldn't hope to get.

So in the general, the choice would be between Hilary and whoever bowed down to the SRB to win the GOP nomination. Or lets say someone like Christie got through the GOP primaries without selling out to the SRB. He could win but really, even if he didn't compromise his "principles," would he really be better compared to the DLC policies we know?

Would Christie be better on fiscal and tax policy than the DLC policies we've had under Clinton and Obama?

Would his environmental policies be better?

Or regulatory policies?

Would it be preferable to have him nominate justices to the SCOTUS and the appellate courts than have Hilary do so?

It's going to be the lesser of two evils choice again -- when has it not been about that?

It's going to be the lesser of two evils choice again -- when has it not been about that?

Not in my voting experience (my first Presidential election was 1980). Talking about what we'd like to see in an elected POTUS, and talking about who's electable, are entirely different conversations. One of those is not reality-based.

I'm hoping/praying Hilary will be willing to back away gracefully if someone both younger and electable takes the bit. Nobody off the top of my head qualifies, though that could change in the next year.

My dream candidates would be Warren or Feingold...serious Progressives who have zero chance getting the establishment Democratic Party's nomination.

So it will probably be Hillary.

If Obama has taught me anything, the Democrats will never let a serious Progressive get anywhere close to the nomination. Just like the Republicans will never let a serious Libertarian get the nomination.

One thing about Hillary though...she has a mean streak and will be nowhere near as conciliatory toward the GOP as Obama has been.

However, the prospect of the US electing the spouse of a former President leaves a bad tastes in my mouth. Is that the best the greatest democracy on earth can produce? A country of 400 million...elects the spouse of a former president? Isn't that bordering on cult of personality, nepotism, or pseudo-monarchy? Not only would they end up with Hillary, they would end up with her troupe, hanger-ons from Clinton and Obama. A similar result on the other side if Jeb Bush were to run.

.

Yeah at the end of the day the American electorate is no more sophisticated than the Argentine electorate.

Feingold would not be unreasonable, even if he's got no chance. In Warren's year in office, she's shown a penchant for grandstanding - student loans pegged to prime rate, anyone? No matter how much I agree with someone's policies, I find that kind of tactic unacceptable. It poisons the well of rational discourse (not as badly as the "I disagree with reality" wing of the Republican party), and I simply can't support that.

Would Christie be better on fiscal and tax policy than the DLC policies we've had under Clinton and Obama?

Would his environmental policies be better?

Or regulatory policies?

1)Would it be preferable to have him nominate justices to the SCOTUS and the appellate courts than have Hilary do so?

Would he end extrajudicial killing?

2)Would he dismantle the national security state apparatus?

3)Would he close Guantanamo and end indefinite detention without trial?

I'm ready to eat my hat if Clinton is (a) elected and (b) does any of the three above.

I am confused. Do you think those are things a Republican president would do?

Nope, but I bet if we got a Libertarian in there, we would.

So we're of the opinion this can all be accomplished by Executive Order?

I believe numbers 1 and 3 can be accomplished via executive order, if I could qualify with the fact that while we might not be able to close the Marine Base at Guantanamo Bay, we can stop using it as a POW camp. Number 2 would require some help from Congress, as we are talking about an apparatus that sprang into being mostly through legislation like the PATRIOT Act et. al. (I think)